Chapter 3
Print Pitches
One of the big advantages an FX printer has over a daisy-wheel
printer or a typewriter is the ability it gives you to choose from a
variety of widths, or pitches, for your characters. To use this feature
well, it’s important to understand just how an FX prints. The tech-
nique used by an FX printer is called dot-matrix printing.
Dot-Matrix Printing
A dot matrix is a grid or graph that someone who designs a charac-
ter set for a dot matrix printer uses. The dot-matrix designs for the
characters, which may be letters of the alphabet, numbers, or sym-
bols, are stored in the printer’s read-only memory (ROM).
The FX’s dot matrix is nine rows of dots high and six columns of
dots wide. Look at any letter on your printout-it’s made up of a
series of dots. And, as you can see in Appendix A, every letter fits
inside this six by nine grid.
Figure 3-1. Dot-matrix characters
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